Rolex is the largest, most well-known, and most profitable watch company in Switzerland; everyone knows that, but most people don’t know is that it wasn’t always Swiss. In fact, Rolex was started in London, in 1905, by a 24-year-old Bavarian with the impressive name of Hans Eberhard Wilhelm Wilsdorf and his British business partner Alfred James Davis; the firm they founded wasn’t Rolex – rather it was called, with startling originality, Wilsdorf & Davis.
This wasn’t exactly a name that was easy to pronounce or would easily sit on a dial, so, over the next few years they registered around a dozen trademarks, the advertisement from 1911 lists ten of them, but the only one given its own box is Rolex, a name they had registered in 1908.
The advertisement also shows that the firm was now profitable enough to have offices in Japan and South Africa as well as a Swiss branch located in La Chaux de Fonds, just over 50km from the factory on Bienne where the movements were being made – and where Rolex movements are still made today.
In the beginning, wristwatches were very much only for ladies, but as you can see in the advertisement, men’s watches were also being produced and sold, although rarely with the name Rolex on the dial, usually it was the name of the retailer featured there.
Not long after this advertisement was published, in 1915, Rolex introduced their first calendar watch – this was 30 years before the introduction of the Datejust, usually thought of as the first calendar watch from Rolex, showing that even this early Rolex, were differentiating themselves from the pack.
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